Interinstitutional agreement of 22 December 1998 between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on common guidelines for the quality of the drafting of Community legislation.

On 23 November 1970, Achille Albonetti, former senior European civil servant and Director of the National Committee for Nuclear Energy, forwards a note to the President of the Commission of the European Communities, Franco Maria Malfatti, in which he announces initiatives relating to the creation of a European Political Community.

In June 1988, the Hanover European Council entrusts to a Committee chaired by Jacques Delors, President of the Commission of the European Communities, ‘the task of studying and proposing concrete stages leading towards the progressive realisation of economic and monetary union (EMU).' The ‘Delors Report', published in April 1989, proposes that EMU be achieved in three stages. During stage two, a European System of Central Banks (ESCB) will be set up in order to make preparations for the transition to the single Community currency during the third stage.

In this interview, Georges Berthoin, Head of the Delegation of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and subsequently Head of the Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities in the United Kingdom until 1973, describes the state of relations between General de Gaulle and the leaders of the United Kingdom as France twice rejected, in 1963 and 1967, the opening of negotiations for the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Communities.

In this interview, Paul Collowald, former Deputy Spokesman for the European Commission, describes the proceedings at and the implications of the European Summit held in The Hague on 1 and 2 December 1969.

In this interview, Jacques Santer, former Luxembourg Prime Minister, outlines the role played by the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the advantages of the principle of rotation.

Interview with Hubert Ehring, Legal Expert in the German Federal Ministry of Justice from 1951 to 1953, Legal Adviser for the coal and steel pool in the German Federal Ministry of Finance from 1953 to 1954, Member from 1954 to 1955 and Director from 1955 to 1958 of the Legal Service of the Secretariat of the Special Council of Ministers of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), Member of the Legal Service of the Commission of the European Economic Community (EEC) from 1958 to 1967 and Financial Controller and Director-General of the Directorate-General for Financial Control of the Commission of the European Communities from 1967 to 1973, carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 25 October 2006 at the home of Hubert Ehring in Uccle, Brussels. The interview was conducted by Étienne Deschamps, a Researcher at the CVCE, and particularly focuses on the following subjects: the Federal Republic of Germany and the coal and steel pool in Western Europe, the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom, the Legal Service of the Commission of the European Economic Community and the Directorate-General for Financial Control of the Commission of the European Communities.

In this interview, Charles Rutten, former Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the European Communities, discusses the role of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) in the decision-making process of the Council.

Interview with André Dubois, Attaché in the Legal Affairs Service of the Special Council of Ministers of the European Coal and Steel Community from 1954 to 1955, Member of the Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom (Val Duchesse) from 1955 to 1957, Head of Division for Accessions, Associations and the OEEC in the Secretariat-General of the Council of the European Economic Community from 1958 to 1969, Head of the Secretariat at the first conference for accession to the Rome Treaties from 1961 to 1963, Director of the Accessions, Relations with EFTA Countries, Mediterranean Policy and Trade Policy Division in the Secretariat-General of the Council of the European Economic Community from 1969 to 1975, Deputy Director-General for the Trade Policy, Development Cooperation Policy, North/South Conferences, Asia and Latin America Division in the Secretariat-General of the Council of the European Communities from 1975 to 1980, Director-General for External Relations and Development Cooperation in the Secretariat-General of the Council of the European Communities from 1980 to 1994 and Special Adviser at the European Commission from 1995 to 1998, carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 8 December 2006 in the studios of the Council of the European Union in Brussels. The interview was conducted by Étienne Deschamps, a Researcher at the CVCE, and particularly focuses on the following subjects: the workings and powers of the ECSC Special Council of Ministers, the Secretariat of the ECSC Special Council of Ministers and the revival of European integration, and the workings and powers of the Council of the European Communities.